Someone rather bluntly popped up on X recently to ask Hollywood writer-producer James Gunn a pointed — and here sanitized — question: “Who asked for a ‘Clayface’ movie??”
Gunn, the guy behind the seriously weird “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchise, clapped back, asking who called for “Back to the Future,” “Casablanca” or “Weapons,” among others. “Clayface” may have no right belonging at that exalted level, but after seeing it, the score is Random Internet Hater, 0; Gunn, 1.
“Clayface” is a surprisingly good revenge thriller-romance, body-horror origin story for a lesser-known villain from the Batman comics. We may not have asked for it, but it’s a crowd-pleaser, mimicking its title character’s ability to be a little something for everyone.
James Watkins directs from a screenplay by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini, part of Gunn and Peter Safran’s first wave of DC Studios films, following “Superman” and “Supergirl.”
Tom Rhys Harries stars as Matt Hagen, a pretty-boy rising actor whose long road from poverty finally nets him an Oscar nomination and industry respect. Cue celebratory drinks at a nightclub.
Except that night he gets involved with a mobster’s girlfriend and the mobster isn’t happy, using a switchblade to carve open our hero’s face. And without those cheekbones and perky nose, he’s finished. “My life is over,” he wails. Harries brings a sweet hangdog defiance to the role.
He soon thinks he’s found salvation in Dr. Caitlyn Corr, a rebel scientist on the cutting edge of nanotechnology, played with real soul by Naomi Ackie. He offers to be her human guinea pig and she injects him with her still-unproven serum of stem cells that begin to repair his scarred face.
It works and the movie’s over. No, no, of course not. The serum does work but only temporarily — leaving Hagen’s face droopier than after a visit to the orthodontist — and Corr has to find a way to stabilize the experiment.
Wait, did we detect some other chemicals drifting between the good doctor and her patient, maybe dopamine and serotonin? (One clue is the weird use of Chicago’s 1976 romantic hit “If You Leave Me Now.”) Yes, sparks are indeed flowing between them, which the American Medical Association frowns on. Plus, she’s got a boyfriend.
“Clayface” then shoots along on twin rails — the race to harness this technology and our hero’s bloodthirsty revenge stampede. All the while, it’s a biting satire of Hollywood and its obsession with beauty, led by an actor playing an actor, who is complimented on being a chameleon.
“This business is all surface,” Hagen is told by an agent who dropped him. The stem cells injected into his face are described as Method actors and a TV talk-show host offers a foreshadowing question: “There’s so many of you. It must be hard to find the real Matt Hagen.”
The last third of the movie gets as unstable as the serum, with Hagen weirdly able to take on anyone’s identity and pass as them if he acts well enough. The scientist’s boyfriend also happens to be a homicide detective and, wouldn’t you know it, he gets assigned to whoever is slaughtering people linked to Matt Hagen. The ultimate showdown, naturally, happens at, you guessed it, a nightclub.
There’s a charming low-rent vibe to “Clayface” after so much expensive bombast from Marvel and DC. Parts of Gotham were shot on real streets — thanks, Liverpool — and practical effects were encouraged over computers. No less than a huge cockroach makes us squeal and one of the best gross-out bits happens in an airplane bathroom as our hero tries to cut skin growing over his eyes with scissors — during turbulence.
One grumble during a recent preview is that the movie is totally Batman-less, with only vague references to the Caped Crusader, like Kane’s Candy Store named after “Batman” co-creator Bob Kane. You’ll get over it. There’s more than enough going on.
“Clayface,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release that lands in theaters Friday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for “strong bloody violence, gore, language, some nudity and brief drug use.” Running time: 108 minutes. Three stars out of four.
